Mother
by petite etoile22
Summary: AU: She wasn't Rosalind Myers. She wasn't Cecilia Martinez. She was my mother. And I was one of two people who understood what that meant to her.


_**Author's note:** So this is a one-shot I came up with on the train. Hope you like. Don't own Spooks, BBC and Kudos do._

* * *

"_She wasn't Rosalind Myers. She wasn't Cecilia Martinez. She was my mother. And I was one of two people who understood what that meant to her."_

* * *

Isabel doesn't know lots of things about her mother, but she knows three.

She loves her mother.

Her mother loves her.

Her mother's special name is Rosalind.

Isabel is only allowed to call her mother by her special name when they're alone and indoors. She whispers it softly as her mother cries into her honey blond locks. The sound makes her mother cry, but not as bad as before. It doesn't sound as strange or as scary. Her mother holds her tight then, and promises to be a better mummy. _'But you're the best mummy anyway,'_ Isabel thinks. Her mother smiles when she tells her that. It's the truth though, she is the best. Isabel understands that Rosalind isn't like other mummies; she doesn't wear bright clothes and trainers, and sometimes she breaks herself when she's angry. They sit there in the quiet, and Isabel knows what happens next.

"Do we have to go now?"

Her mother nods slowly.

"Do we have to go on the planes again?"

"No, I know you don't like them."

Her mother stands up then and Isabel are silent while Rosalind slips her into a dress, socks, shoes, and rain mac, before sliding a tiny rucksack onto her back. Isabel notices that her mother is only wearing a thin cardigan for a coat as they step outside into the November night air.

"Are you cold mummy?"

Her mother shakes her head, pausing briefly to attach a child's harness to Isabel's wrist.

"I'll carry you when you get tired."

Isabel knows what that means. It means they can't get the bus. It means they have to walk for a long time. It means her mother is scared.

* * *

Isabel wakes to find herself on the backseat of the bus. Her mother smiles softly, and her eyes sparkle in the moonlight.

"Hello, Sleepyhead."

"Where are we going mummy?"

"We're going back to where I lived when I was a little girl."

"Are there people like us there?"

"Yes. It's just like where we were living before."

"I didn't like the other places. I couldn't understand the people."

"That's because they weren't speaking the same language as us. Not everybody speaks Spanish."

"What do they speak?"

"Well, people speak Chinese, Italian, Greek, Persian, German...lots of languages."

"What language do you speak?"

"I speak Spanish like you, and I speak Russian, French, and Arabic."

"Nothing else."

"No," she shakes her head fiercely. "Nothing else."

The bus journey passes with her mother teaching her how to say numbers in those languages. Isabel decides she wants to speak every language in the world when she grows up. Her mother gets out the map and asks her to point out all the places they've been and their names. She tells Isabel that they're going to a city called Buenos Aires, and that it will take them roughly two days to get there. Isabel looks down and the map and all its crosses. The only green parts that remain untouched are tiny islands, and the large island next to the country called France. The crosses surround but never touch, as if they are keeping something hidden within.

Or someone locked out.

* * *

They reach Buenos Aires without any problems, and slowly settle into life there. Her mother stops crying at night, and Isabel no longer worries that she might break herself beyond repair. Sometimes, Rosalind (well, Cecilia) even wore bright colours.

Then came the Quiet Day.

Isabel knows that something has changed but she can't work out how. Her mother weaves through the streets following and running away from some invisible creature at the same time, in some paradoxical dance. Isabel realises that this change is bad and the feeling only gets worse when they return home and her mother doesn't tell her off for not eating her dinner properly. She goes to her room to listen to some music, and only comes out when she hears the noise over the sound of her small cd player.

There is a tall, dark man waving a knife whilst hugging her mother awkwardly. Her eyes remain steadfast on the man's arm, and its desperate hacking motion at the light-fitting. Finally, he collapses, taking her mother with him. He doesn't hesitate in flipping her onto her back and hitting her repeatedly in the chest, before kissing her strangely. It is several moments before she coughs viciously, and her eyelids flutter open.

_"Wha-"_

Her mother silences the stranger with a barely perceptible shake of the head, before replying in a language that sounded the night air passing through the trees outside their little balcony. They talk like that for a while; the man darting glances in her direction as her mother cries into his arms. Isabel thinks he looks uncomfortable, but one look in his eyes tells her that he understands the predicament that is weighing down her tiny soul, even if he thinks the truth behind it is doubtful. It is a predicament she is unable to vocalise yet, but in over half a decade's time, will be able to compress into one sentence.

Rosalind was not born to be a mother.

"Please stay."

Isabel isn't aware the request has left her mouth until he smiles sadly.

"Has your mummy told you her secret name?"

She nods, unsure and wary of where this line of conversation is going.

"Mine's Zaf."

She knows he's going nowhere then.

* * *

And they don't. She goes to school, and her mother and Zaf go to work. Sometimes, she can even pretend that they're a real family and that Zaf really is her father. She's now old enough now not to find it strange that they sleep in the same bed. And a part of her finds it sad that there has been no additional to their blissful family unit. Then she remembers the Quiet Day. She starts university and forgets all about their map, and the crosses that surround but never touch.

Her mother is laughing when it happens.

The sound of a car backfiring rips her world apart. It isn't a car, it's a gun. The sound repeats itself three times, but Isabel can only focus on one stream of blood pouring out of her mother. Zaf shouts her mother's secret name over and over again, not caring that they're in public. An older man approaches and starts talking in a language Isabel doesn't really understand (she never made an effort and her mother didn't encourage her), but knows is called English.

_"I'm so sorry."_

She understands the last word and knows what it means. She clings to her mother desperately. She doesn't want to say goodbye.

Her mother makes her anyway, just like she used to make her eat her vegetables and take her medicine.

"Please stay Rosalind, please stay."

She can't. Someone has broken her beyond repair.

* * *

The older man approaches her after the funeral service. He looks world-worn, and it seems that life has not been too kind to his heart. There is grief in his eyes, the same grief her mother had until Zaf cut her down.

"I knew your mother before she was your mother." He states in rusty Spanish.

"And who was she?"

"Rosalind Myers. She worked for the British government until her death was faked."

"She died before?"

"She was going to be given a lethal injection, but a colleague switched needles."

"They saved her life."

"They cared for her."

"What was their name?"

"Adam. He was called Adam."

Isabel understands this use of the past tense; her mother is in the past too.

"You look like him."

"He got Rosalind pregnant." She states, understanding Zaf's glances and her mother's tears that first time they all came together.

"Yes. We didn't know she had you until now. You have family in Eng-"

Isabel shakes her head fiercely. "No. No, I don't. My family's here."

She keeps her head down as he walks away; she won't let a stranger see her cry. Zaf will fetch her when she's ready to leave.

She realises now that her mother was a clever woman; she never forbade her to learn English or to travel there. She just never mentioned it, and so Isabel was never really interested. She had been a hundred other places, and had heard a hundred other tongues spoken.

She realises now that her mother had been protecting her from her sordid past and all the pain it entailed. Her mother's past was no place to raise a child.

She realises now that the Quiet Day was when her mother's past had caught up with her. Unable to discern the good from the bad, she decided to end it all and cut her daughter's last tie to that damn island and its history. Rosalind had thought that no mother at all, was better to Isabel than having her. Her mother was prepared to give her up in order to protect her. She was going to end her own life to save her daughter's.

Isabel doesn't know a lot of things about her mother, but she knows four.

She loves her mother.

Her mother loved her.

Her mother's special name was Rosalind.

Rosalind was born to be a mother.


End file.
